My Problem is ...

not a lack of ideas but an over abundance.  I've started at least a dozen posts, some funny, some serious, but they compete with each other for space in my brain.  I can't seem to get one more than just barely started on before another is intruding.  And on top of that there is my day job and my actual children looking for my time too.  (By the way the kids win - hands down - all the time.  I'm not sure it is a good thing that they always win - I need some time to be me, but, well, they do.  That's just how it is.)

Here is one quick thing I can share though that I think is awesome.  I want to do something much longer and expand on it - but this will do for now.

I am reading The Resilient Parent by Mantu Joshi and I just came across this gem:
"What would it mean to think of yourself as someone living an extraordinary life, rather than a burdened one? What would it mean to claim the challenges before you as worthy of your extraordinary skills?"

I also happened to attend a speech today by Mr. Alex Zan.   Mr Zan is one of the Charlottesville 12, the first black children to attend a "white" school in the state of Virginia.  He was talking about how all people matter, how we all have the opportunity to do something great with our lives.  He said he and his mother (who was the driving force behind him attending the integrated school) were a part of changing history and yes it was hard, but really they changed history JUST BY LIVING their lives guided by their beliefs.

These two things came together for me in a mix of feelings and ideas can't really put onto words very well yet.  Not coherently.  But I know that being involved in the basic right of all people to matter, all people to be respected, is now a part of my parenting journey.  This is not just for my son's sake.  Yes that is part of it but it is for my sake too.  I have a set of God given skills and abilities.  I've felt for a very long time, long before I ever had children, that my life lacked a purpose, that there was something I was supposed to be doing with those gifts.  I wanted to be passionately pursuing a meaningful purpose but I had no idea what it was or how to uncover it.  I wanted a calling but didn't hear one.

I believe I may have started down the right path at last.  To really stretch an over used metaphor - I've been wandering lost down all sorts of roads, not bad or wrong roads, just not MY road and that is why things have felt so pointless and the journey so hard.  I understand that the road to respect for neurocognative diversity is not a short or easy path.  All you have to do is look at the struggles of any other marginalized group throughout all of history to know that its a very long, very hard road and I myself may never see us arrive but finally, finally I feel like I've found its the path I'm meant to be on.

(Yes, yes you all will probably have to point me back at this post many many times when I lose heart or lose my way.  You've kept me going though many tough times.  I promise this one is going to be different because this time I am not trying to logic myself into caring - I already feel it in my head AND my heart.)